


Queens take hearts but knights have moves, too

by WafflesnRizzles



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Chess Metaphors, Emma realizes her feelings, F/F, Plenty of Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2016-05-08
Packaged: 2018-06-07 02:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6782122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WafflesnRizzles/pseuds/WafflesnRizzles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina is teaching Emma how to play chess, and Emma finally decides to make the right move. A SQ oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Queens take hearts but knights have moves, too

Emma sits back in her chair, eyes squinted and face squinched in thought. Her jaw tightens, imperceptible to most but very, very perceptively to the brunette across from her.

“Emma just go already,” Regina huffs for the third time. She, unlike the lackadaisical blonde, is sitting primly in her chair, her shoulders perfectly aligned and her red lips pursed in ill-concealed impatience. Her coffee eyes are narrowed, too, only she is looking at the blonde and the blonde is looking at the checkered board between them.

“I told you,” Emma answers slowly, her eyes never leaving the board, ”that you should go first. I hate making the first move.” She draws out the ‘hate’ in a vaguely childish manner, highlighting her discomfort. “I’ve never even played this before—you’re the one who’s supposed to be teaching me, after all.” Regina rolls her eyes at her Sheriff’s inability to make a move. _Her_ Sheriff? The Sheriff. Her son’s mother the Sheriff. The Sheriff she definitely had no interest in beyond the platonic co-parenting arrangement they had settled into after Neverland.

Another agonizing minute ticks by. Emma’s hand hovers over a piece, then retreats. “Can I move this guy?” Emma asks, picking up one of her knight pieces. Regina nods her assent. “Most people move their pawns first, but that is a legal first move. It can go here,” She traces with her finger one L-shaped maneuver. “Or here,” and she traces a second that directly mirrors the first.

Emma has to remind herself to look at the finger and not at the rest of Regina currently leaning over the board. Emma places the knight back and leans back again, more thoughtful than scrutinizing this time. Another minute passes. “Come on, Regina. Just go first already,” Emma pleads, her green eyes melting into the irresistible puppy pools that Regina almost regretted her son had inherited. It was so damned persuasive. Regina looks at her, huffs, rolls her eyes and moves one of her black pawns two squares forward.

“Ah-ha!” Emma yells, triumphantly pumping her fist in the air. She moves one of her knights to capture the pawn, slamming it down slightly harder than necessary on the wooden tabletop. It rattles the pieces and Regina’s Queen topples over. The brunette rights the piece with narrowed eyes and another huff. When she looks up, though, Regina is only smiling as if _she_ had actually won.

_Simpleton Charming_ , she thinks with a smile. “I knew that would draw you out, dear.” The words are purred, the smile predatory. The thrill of victory is already singing in her veins. The game was on. Regina captures Emma’s knight with another pawn two moves later. Rather than slamming it down in victory as Emma had done, Regina slowly plucks it off the board with obvious relish, a challenging eyebrow raised skyward. “Your move, Miss Swan,” Regina taunts.

As the game progresses, Emma becomes more knowledgeable about the pieces and their movesets; it also becomes increasingly apparent that she has little to no ability to plan out anything she is about to do. She moves haphazardly, rushing her pieces into seemingly strategic or ‘safe’ locations only to have Regina crush her at every turn. The only thing she seems to be adept as is getting Regina to smile between moves, breaking her intense concentration for a few moments of levity. It feels right between the two of them; it feels easy. Henry is reading a comic book under Regina’s prized apple tree, she and Regina haven’t fought--well, really fought, anyway--since Neverland and she just feels...happy. The realization brings a warm smile to her face, which Regina catches with amused curiosity. She even smiles a bit before catching herself and schooling her features into her usual mask. The ghost of the smile remains (It’s always there around Emma these days, but Emma would never point that out to her. Henry did a couple of weeks ago, and Regina mysteriously disappeared from Emma’s life for three confusing days).

“How was I supposed to know you could do that?” Emma whines as Regina takes yet another one of her pieces. She wouldn’t doubt the former Queen had planned out the entire game from her first move.

“You really are so oblivious, dear. Maybe you could try thinking ahead for once?” The accompanying smirk makes the biting remark completely worth it in Emma’s book. It sends a jolt of something down between her legs, which has been happening rather frequently of late. Emma refuses to think about it, though, unless it’s really late at night and Mary Margaret and David are sleeping soundly and her fingers begin to wander. Her mind, though, seems to only be fixated on the brunette grinning evilly across from her.

Emma loses. She loses handily. In fact, she loses so badly that she owes Regina Granny’s Breakfast for a week. Somehow, though, it doesn’t really feel like losing, especially when Regina resets the board and gives her the most seductive, lecherous grin imaginable. Her deep brown eyes flick slowly up the visible length of her body in a way Emma realizes is not unfamiliar. How many times had Regina looked at her like that? How many times had she brushed it aside?

_It’s just an intimidation tactic, Emma._

_She’s just trying to throw you off, Emma._

_She doesn’t mean it, Emma._

_You just need to get laid, Emma._

Had she really been blind for so long? It wasn’t just intimidation or tactical or bluster. It was also soft smiles and softer eyes and admissions of not-hate that really meant something closer to love. It sends heat and liquid down below her navel, and she can’t help but bite her lip and steel her resolve a little (Who is she kidding? A lot.). It takes a lot of mettle and steel to realize you’re about to pursue the former Evil Queen romantically. About to kiss the lips you’ve been fantasiz--

“So, Miss Swan, are you going to make the first move this time?” A pink tongue darts out against red lips. It’s mesmerizing.

“No, Regina. I think you just did.” Emma isn’t sure when she reached Regina’s chair on the opposite side of the table, and she isn’t sure when she got the cojones to slowly pull the Queen up from her chair or when she got the chutzpah to place her hands on said Queen’s magnificent waist, but she is and their lips are mere inches from one another and— Emma smiles against the brunette’s red lips because she knows she’s just captured a Queen who had already captured an oblivious White Knight and somehow definitely both of them just won.


End file.
